As a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), I benefit from a wonderful, smart community of immigration lawyers in the New England Area. Each month our AILA chapter has a meeting on a timely topic, and each year, the chapter hosts an amazing conference. I am excited to attend this year’s conference on March 3. At the conference, I look forward to hearing from government officials about new policies and practices under the new administration.

The conference agenda is available at http://www.ailane.org/assets/cms/files/2016-2017/2017%20Conference/14th%20Annual%20AILA%20NE%20Conference%20Agenda%20(2016.12.15).pdf

Talk with an attorney about your legal eligibility for US citizenship.

The Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston offers English language and civics classes. The classes are for people studying for their N-400 citizenship/naturalization test. Also, the classes are for people who have already submitted their N-400 Applications. Even if the applicant is working with me or another attorney on legal matters, the classes are a great way for any applicant to prepare for the test. Call theIrish International Immigrant Center at 617-542-7654, ext. 36. Or see http://www.iiicenter.org/ for more information!

Contact my office if you’d like to set up a legal consultation to talk about your eligibility for citizenship.

Yesterday Trump issued an aggressive, anti-immigrant, unrealistic executive order that seeks to build more detention facilities and a wall between the US and Mexico, that targets immigration enforcement against immigrants with “southern” violations, that hopes to charge unqualified local and states law enforcement officials with federal immigration jobs, and that takes away the dignity of millions of immigrants living in the US. Trump’s beliefs on immigration are unconscionable and, on a more practical level, absurdly out of touch with reality.

Yesterday’s presidential actions are available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions.

The new administration set the tone for immigration months ago. Today we see that it plans to continue its anti-immigrant stance. Check out the Boston Globe article at http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2017/01/24/trump-to-move-on-border-security-immigration-enforcement.

About every month, USCIS publishes processing times for its decisions on most USCIS forms. Whenever you receive a receipt notice from USCIS, it should have an address at the bottom of the form (generally on the left side). That is the office that is processing the form. At the top of the form, there is a “receipt” or “priority” date. Check the status of your form by looking at the Processing Times for the office processing your form, checking the published date against your receipt or priority date. If USCIS is processing applications with a date BEFORE your date, then your application should be processed. If not, you can contact USCIS to request that it take action on the case.

Happy 2017! Make sure to check USCIS’s new versions of most forms and most new fees at USCIS.gov. USCIS will reject unauthorized versions of forms immediately and others after a cut-off date on February 17, 2017. USCIS will reject ALL applications that are not submitted the new, correct fees listed for each form.